Creating Playful & Dramatic Multimedia Presentations with iMovie
What is iMovie?
iMovie is the movie-making component of Apple's iLife suite. With iMovie's intuitive interface, students use drag & drop technology to allow them to focus on content and creativity in creating multimedia video presentations.
Accessing iMovie
iMovie is available only on Macs. It is also available for the iPad, but this session focuses the MacBook version only. Download iMovie 11 through the App Store for $14.99.
Student Work
Helen Keller - How She Changed History Through her Human Spirit
In this assignment, students researched an important figure in history and were asked to to answer the question, "How did this person change history through their creativity or human spirit?" The assignment ... create a digital story to dramatically answer that question, and make it clear why we still celebrate their contribution today. Alternating between text and graphics, Liv chose to heighten the dramatic effect of her presentation with music and not to use voiceovers. Using first person, it's clear she captured more than just the facts, and was able to convey to her audience, the dramatic nature of Miss Keller's story.
Click Picture to View Movie
Project O! This video was created by a 6th grader to document a field trip with Project Oceanology to study the life and physical environments at sea and on shore of the Long Island Sound. She used only still images, but with the use of features in iMovie, it's much more than a slide show. Brynn and her team brought this experience to life for her viewers.
Click Picture to View Movie
Key features:
Students click and drag images and video clips into the workspace to form the sequence of their visual content.
Text slides, overlays, transitions, and voiceovers come next, again with drag and drop.
Add motion to still images using the Ken Burns effect, a feature that allows you to move in or out to bring dramatic focus to elements in your pictures.
Controls appear on each component to allow for granular adjustments to timing, audio, and video.
The final addition is audio in the form of background music and sound effects to set the mood and even the setting, all from the copyright-free Apple loops library, a tune created in GarageBand, or from an imported sound file.
Export project to a Quicktime movie for portability and sharing.
MINI-TASK - Create a One-Minute Digital Story with iMovie! Guiding Question:How did Dr. Martin Luther King change history though his creativity or human spirit?
In this activity session, participants will be provided with the photo, audio, and video files, as well as bulleted facts about Dr. King, to help them create a dramatic digital story in the 15 minutes allotted for this session.
Getting Started Step 1: Get a flash drive and drag the "Dr. King files" folder to your desktop. Step 2: Study the handout "Understanding the iMovie 11 Workspace". We'll go over it together. Step: 3 Open iMovie Step 4: Click, drag & drop image files 1 - 10 in order into the top left corner of the iMovie workspace. Step 5: Click the PLAY arrow to view what you have so far - arrow on left for full screen; arrow on right for preview top right.
Edit Photos & Timing Sept 6: Hover over a slide to see controls, & click on the gear icon to edit Step 7: Change timing for this slide - add √ to set same time for all slides Step 8: To crop, click on the gear again, and select "Cropping, Ken Burns, Rotation" - cropping will take place in preview area, top right Step 9: Discover options - presenter will demo
Add Text Step 10: Click on the T for TEXT in the LIBRARIES tools Step 11: Scroll to view text layout and style options - can change format Step 12: Click, drag & drop "Centered" text panel (top left option) into workspace to the left of the first slide Step 13: Edit text in top right preview panel, click DONE.
Add Voiceover Step 14: Compose a comment to add as narration to an image or two Step 15: In the TOOLS bar, select the microphone icon, then click on the point at which you want the narration to start & start talking into the microphone Step 16:A blue bar will appear over the text slide. To return to edit mode, double-click the blue bar. Step 17: Click & drag to move the narration to a different location
Add Video Step 18: Go to FILE > IMPORT > MOVIES & navigate to the DESKTOP King folder Step 19: Select "MLK Committed" .mov file & click IMPORT; movie imports to video holding area Step 20: Presenter will demo
Add Background Music Step 20: In the LIBRARIES bar, select the music icon Step 21: Select iLife Sound Effects > Jingles Step 22: Click, drag & drop "Elysium Medium" onto the intro text slide Step 23: Play what you have so far
Reflection prompt: How can a project-based research project with iMovie be crafted in a way that promotes deeper digging into research, and assimilation of the facts to get students working at a richer cognitive level?
What is iMovie?
iMovie is the movie-making component of Apple's iLife suite. With iMovie's intuitive interface, students use drag & drop technology to allow them to focus on content and creativity in creating multimedia video presentations.
Accessing iMovie
iMovie is available only on Macs. It is also available for the iPad, but this session focuses the MacBook version only.
Download iMovie 11 through the App Store for $14.99.
Student Work
Helen Keller - How She Changed History Through her Human Spirit
In this assignment, students researched an important figure in history and were asked to to answer the question, "How did this person change history through their creativity or human spirit?" The assignment ... create a digital story to dramatically answer that question, and make it clear why we still celebrate their contribution today. Alternating between text and graphics, Liv chose to heighten the dramatic effect of her presentation with music and not to use voiceovers. Using first person, it's clear she captured more than just the facts, and was able to convey to her audience, the dramatic nature of Miss Keller's story.
Project O!
This video was created by a 6th grader to document a field trip with Project Oceanology to study the life and physical environments at sea and on shore of the Long Island Sound. She used only still images, but with the use of features in iMovie, it's much more than a slide show. Brynn and her team brought this experience to life for her viewers.
Key features:
MINI-TASK - Create a One-Minute Digital Story with iMovie!
Guiding Question: How did Dr. Martin Luther King change history though his creativity or human spirit?
In this activity session, participants will be provided with the photo, audio, and video files, as well as bulleted facts about Dr. King, to help them create a dramatic digital story in the 15 minutes allotted for this session.
Getting Started
Step 1: Get a flash drive and drag the "Dr. King files" folder to your desktop.
Step 2: Study the handout "Understanding the iMovie 11 Workspace". We'll go over it together.
Step: 3 Open iMovie
Step 4: Click, drag & drop image files 1 - 10 in order into the top left corner of the iMovie workspace.
Step 5: Click the PLAY arrow to view what you have so far - arrow on left for full screen; arrow on right for preview top right.
Edit Photos & Timing
Sept 6: Hover over a slide to see controls, & click on the gear icon to edit
Step 7: Change timing for this slide - add √ to set same time for all slides
Step 8: To crop, click on the gear again, and select "Cropping, Ken Burns, Rotation" - cropping will take place in preview area, top right
Step 9: Discover options - presenter will demo
Add Text
Step 10: Click on the T for TEXT in the LIBRARIES tools
Step 11: Scroll to view text layout and style options - can change format
Step 12: Click, drag & drop "Centered" text panel (top left option) into workspace to the left of the first slide
Step 13: Edit text in top right preview panel, click DONE.
Add Voiceover
Step 14: Compose a comment to add as narration to an image or two
Step 15: In the TOOLS bar, select the microphone icon, then click on the point at which you want the narration to start & start talking into the microphone
Step 16: A blue bar will appear over the text slide. To return to edit mode, double-click the blue bar.
Step 17: Click & drag to move the narration to a different location
Add Video
Step 18: Go to FILE > IMPORT > MOVIES & navigate to the DESKTOP King folder
Step 19: Select "MLK Committed" .mov file & click IMPORT; movie imports to video holding area
Step 20: Presenter will demo
Add Background Music
Step 20: In the LIBRARIES bar, select the music icon
Step 21: Select iLife Sound Effects > Jingles
Step 22: Click, drag & drop "Elysium Medium" onto the intro text slide
Step 23: Play what you have so far
The following technical scoresheet is intended to accompany a rubric designed to assess the content of the PSA/digital story/movie.
Reflection prompt:
How can a project-based research project with iMovie be crafted in a way that promotes deeper digging into research, and assimilation of the facts to get students working at a richer cognitive level?
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Intro to iMovie 11
iMovie Tutorials